Friday, February 19, 2010

Novel Notes and Teen News: Your Source for Teen Book Information and Other Teen News 2/19/10

Dystopian Futures

In my last Novel Notes I couldn’t control the excitement for the announcement of the new Hunger Games book, Mockingjay. Even though it is still months away from publication I have noticed a buzz around the library about the new cover, and of course the perpetual question, “When are you going to order it?” My standard answer is that I will order it as soon as our vendor shows quantities other than zero—once the magic number appears, I promise you it will be in my cart and shortly after in our catalog.

This excitement, however, has piqued a curiosity in me. You see, I never realized before now, how interested we seem to be in these dystopian futures. I knew I liked them and had read a number of them, but I never really thought about how many of the books I read would fall into that category. For instance, in the last year and including Incarceron by Catherine Fisher that I am currently reading I have read eight different dystopian novels. While that number is hardly huge, the number is significant because it seems to just slightly outweigh the other genres. I just thought I was reading fantasy or sci-fi, but it looks like what I have really been reading has been books about dystopian futures. In the last couple of years some of the dystopian books I have reviewed have included:

• City of Ember by DuPrau
• Little Brother by Doctrow
• The Uglies series by Westerfeld
• Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Collins
• Unwind by Shusterman
• Forest of Hands and Teeth by Ryan
• Genesis Alpha by Rune
• Life as We Knew It by Pfeffer
• Neptune’s Children by Dobkin
• Declaration by Malley

It seems like lately I am coming across books about dystopian futures everywhere, and I find myself most wanting to read those. Why? I don’t know, but they are the hardest for me to avoid and the hardest for me to put down. And suddenly it seems like I am not the only one. This month, one of the blogs I follow, Presenting Lenore, is dedicating an entire month to this topic and just this week, I found this article “Apocalypse Now” from Publisher’s Weekly’s email newsletter Children’s Bookshelf about how this genre is on the rise:

I guess this genre is slowly on the rise and let me say, I can't wait to see what is next!

Talk Back: I am going to be working on a Dystopian Futures book list for those of us addicted to this type of fiction. What books have you read that you would recommend to someone looking for books like the Hunger Games, Uglies, or any of your other favorite dystopian novels?

Fall Sneak Peak

While fall may seem like a long way away from now—especially since we are still digging out from the last snow storms that dumped inches on us, it isn’t that far away for publishers planning release dates for up and coming books. PW was kind enough to offer us a sneak peak at what is coming out from publishers this fall including a new novel in the Blue Bloods series by Melissa de la Cruz and a new book for the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. Check out this great list!